Wildfire's Woman
by baby-kitsune9
Summary: It all started with a journal that led them to a woman out of place in their world. A chosen one. A future bride to one of them for the sake of carrying on with ancient bloodlines. Kay was different from most women. She came to this strange new world before she could even recall her own and was adopted only to lose everything later. Ryo/OC rated M. Read and review. OK
1. Chapter 1

**Yo, this is my first Ronin Warriors fiction and just so you know- the original idea for this story was written out when I was ten. So if there's any part of this that isn't very well thought out then just remember that I'm following the old story line okay. **

**And for those of you who don't know any of my current three hundred and something works- I don't do T rated. I don't do K rated. I don't do anything less than M for mature. Which means swearing, alcohol, drugs, sex, torture, rape. _Anything._ And I do mean anything that just happens to cross my little black mind.**

**Oh, reviews are welcome and flames will not be tolerated.**

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It all started with a book.

Someone's journal.

A simple means to unwind after a long day of searching the deserted city streets and subways for any signs of life. Ryo had at first picked up the book thinking it would help motivate them to know a little bit about the person who had written in the small leather bound book decorated in blue and lavender butterflies. It was meant to serve as a reminder of what they were fighting for when they felt at their lowest.

And though he felt a slight twinge of guilt for reading the neatly written words out loud to his friends, he couldn't bring himself to completely regret reading the words inside the pages.

Whoever wrote in the journal was a brilliant writer.

Descriptive and creative. Everything she put into words made him and the others feel as if those words could breathe life into the dead and unknown. Reviving everything so well with her words- that from time to time it made them cry.

Oh whoever this girl was- she was _amazing_.

And he wanted so badly to see her; to meet her and hand her her journal and thank her for giving them hope. However slight or small it may have been. It had been enough for them to hold on. To fight harder and push themselves farther than they ever had before.

Today was like any other day for them. They had gone out and searched for people who might have escaped capture by the Dynasty early in the morning, a few hours before dawn. Leaving the only two civilian's that they had managed to keep safe in one of the subway tunnels under the streets of Tokyo, sleeping with Ryo's companion/pet white Siberian tiger- White Blaze, since they knew the large feline would kill anyone that tried to take the two so that they could hurt them.

They searched the city, dividing up into teams, each with individual chores. After all this was survival, there was more to it than just running, hiding and protecting the civilians. They had to look for new places to serve as their base of operations, scavenge food, water, ect... Otherwise they wouldn't survive for much longer. And they had noticed a troubling trend of late where they would have to stay hidden for days upon days without sleeping or eating.

So moving their base of operations from time to time was a good thing. Especially when the enemy was starting to try and wear them down. It wasn't so much that Ryo and the others were worried about themselves as they were the civilians Mia (age seventeen) and Yuli (age ten). They had the strength of the ancients within them to help sustain their bodies and minds.

Mia and Yuli were a different matter altogether.

They could starve to death or even get sick and then they would have little choice but to walk right into any Dynasty traps that were laid out for them so that they could at least try and save the two from further harm.

Why just last night Kento, one of the other warriors and Ryo's friend had held Yuli for hours while the boy cried, he had been so hungry. Mia had looked on with a sort of blank look on her pale face and Ryo had asked her if she was okay. She had nodded her head slowly, not bothering to answer because he knew that anything she would say at this point (especially after watching a little kid cry from hunger) would be a lie.

Today however Ryo had drawn the line and told everyone in the group that once they were done searching the city for more civilians that they were each to hit any store's on the way back to the subway and take whatever food and drinks they could carry. He knew that if they didn't Yuli and Mia would likely die soon, and that wasn't something he wanted to watch happen.

The others had agreed and soon had split up, each of the five heading out in different directions for several miles just in case the enemy appeared. This way if the unthinkable should happen- Mia, Yuli and the other warriors would remain safe.

However the unthinkable didn't happen and one by one by the time the sun had set each of them returned to the subway one by one, carrying several bags of food and drinks in their hands and arms. And all of them had smiled when Yuli had used up what little bit of energy he'd had left to try and semi tackle each of them and take the bags from them and started rummaging through them.

Pulling out everything from vegetables, to fruits to nuts and frozen meats that Ryo had then confiscated and went through and asked Kento if he could help him set up a place to cook some of it further in the tunnel so that none of the smoke would escape outside and give away their location. Then after handing his friends several packets of raw meat had grabbed three or four more and ripped them open and fed them to White Blaze figuring that the large cat had to be damn near starving too since it had eaten nearly a week ago.

Later on, after everyone had eaten a bit and was feeling less stressed, Ryo had been asked to read a bit more from the book. Deciding that he'd like to unwind after the past few days of stress, he pulled the small leather bound book from it's hiding place in one of his calf guards and flipped the book open and to the page he had last stopped at and scanned the words, his heart dropping into the pit of his stomach as he silently read.

_Mom was laid to rest today. _

_No one knows why. Last night she just went to bed and this morning she never woke up. I found her body around ten when I went up to check on her. She'd been acting strangely ever since dad died. Not that she was never not strange, but she'd been acting stranger than normal. Her moods were odd. She'd seem happy one second and the next- it was like staring at a stranger. _

_There was an incident last week that I didn't put in this book. I didn't dare just in case nothing of that nature ever happened again. _

_I didn't want my mom to be remembered as a lunatic. But she did scare me...so badly. _

_Now that she's gone, I doubt it matters so I'll just start at the beginning- _

Ryo started to read, slowly at first. As if testing the water at a hot spring or the beach or something. He was hesitant to read these particular private thoughts aloud. Especially once he glanced at the bottom of the page and saw the date there.

March the tenth, 1995.

Today was March the twentieth, 1995.

Just ten days. But how was that even possible? He wondered as he calculated that he'd had the book for at least three weeks. Had whoever been writing in the journal dated it wrong? He wondered as he kept reading, not bothering to look at the others since he knew that the words were disturbing them as much as they were disturbing him.

_Mom had just picked me up after school and we got into an argument. It wasn't anything big. She was mad because I had skipped school again to hang out with my friends. Anyways we were going the long way home- which is basically around the neighborhood and over the train tracks. Well I was in the middle of telling mom to butt out, because let's face it I haven't lived up to my usually quota for being grounded this year and we were starting across the tracks when she suddenly parked the car and turned it off. _

_Right there on the train tracks. _

_And I was thinking, this has got to be one of the stupidest ways to win an argument that she has ever tried but then the lights started flashing and I heard it. The sound of a train heading our way. I told her to move the car and she just sat there. Staring blankly at me as if she'd never see me before. The train got so close that it was nearly on top of us when I finally grabbed the keys and restarted the car and put my foot on top of hers over the gas peddle, forcing it down enough to get us off of the tracks just in time to save us both from a very horrifying and painful death. _

Flipping the page Ryo settled on a different one, deciding that he'd rather read of something else than some poor kid's mom dying.

_It's been several weeks since momma died. And I've been holding up as best as I can. Distracting myself with little things like painting, knitting sweaters and scarves (I must have knitted enough to keep a third world country warm in the winter by now) I've also been doing volunteer work at the local youth center to see if I could help with any of the more troubled teens there. _

_So far I think I've made a few new friends. _

_Tosh and Andy. Jennifer and Helen. _

_As messed up as everything is it's nice to be able to still have the ability to make other's smile. I love those kids. I wish I could just take them home with me and adopt them. Tosh is eighteen and he already calls me mom. _

_It kind of surprised me the first time he did it cause it just sort of slipped out during one of our little talks. I can still remember the comical look on his face as he tried to tell me he didn't mean too call me mom- it just happened. But ever since then he seems to be getting more and more comfortable with his little slips. There is absolutely zero remorse. _

_My namesake, grandma Kay, would have adored him. My dad would have too. _

_They were just funny like that when it came to people. _

Ryo snorted in amusement as Cye- a gent that had come across from England and Rowin- a guy who had lived in Brooklyn before the Dynasty had shown itself, both chuckled as Sage said, "Well if Kay was half right about her grandmother and dad liking people without remorse, they would have loved the lot of us." Earning more than a few snickers all around since each of them had been more or less conditioned to fight without remorse.

As well as to take without remorse. Just anything that helped them to survive the Dynasty's assault on their world.


	2. Chapter 2

Ryo lay awake later that night reading several pages from the journal to himself while the others slept and smiled from time to time at the descriptions of events and the people involved. Apparently Kay was a little bit of a loner. But she did have a small circle of friends that she relied on. One such person was mentioned several times. A person by the name Robyn.

From what he could tell the two had known each other since they were toddlers and had grown up just a few houses away from each other. She described some of their jokes and antics growing up with such precision that he wondered what sort of major she would have been trying for in collage. She mentioned dreams of being a writer. Or maybe even a painter. Along with several other interesting facts, one of which was the eerily strange fact that she had been having some peculiar dreams about people in armor running around the city.

Frowning he thumbed through the pages a little more and found sketches of some of the Dynasty warlords and creatures that he and the others had dubbed 'the tin cans', followed by several pages of sketches of himself and the other ronin's. "Holy shi-" Ryo started to say when Yuli moaned and rolled over and threw one of his little arms across Ryo's lap, making the older man jump a bit and look down at the boy, startled and just a bit worried at the same time.

Mia and White Blaze both would tear him a new one if he woke the kid up. But after a moment or so of making sure the boy was still sleeping soundly, he carefully removed Yuli's arm from his waist and laid it next to him. Then went back to the journal and after checking out the accuracy of the sketches, turned the pages again and came to a stop when some photo's fell out of the book and into his lap.

"What the-" He breathed as he slowly, and carefully picked up the pictures and started to look through them. His eyes widening a little bit when he saw several pictures with Kay's name on the back of them. _Dear god- _So this was his mystery girl. The one he'd been dying to meet ever since he had first cracked open the journal.

She was beautiful.

Almost like what one expected an angel or a fairy princess would look like.

She was petite, and delicately boned with angelic features, wide soft green eyes that were rimmed in turquoise, her hair silky was long, mid back length at least in one of the photo's (he had no way of knowing how much longer her hair was in the last photo since that age of the girl in the picture's varied from photo to photo) and it was a peculiar combination of silvery blond with pale red highlights that in the direct sunlight made her hair a soft almost translucent pinkish blond that went well with the color of her eyes and the soft ivory of her skin.

Picking out a picture of Kay when she was at least, by his estimate, in her late teens to twenties. He set the other picture's aside and leaned back against White Blaze who twitched slightly as he accepted Ryo's weight against his stomach, yet didn't awaken. He merely let out a loud rumbling purr that made Ryo smile as he ran his thumb across the photo's surface as he stared at the image of the young woman staring back.

Those wide pale green/turquoise eyes of Kay's looked as if they could look right through a person's soul.

He liked her eyes. They held the spark of fire, stubbornness, and strength in their depths.

And if there was something he understood well- it was fire, stubbornness, and strength. Shifting again to get more comfortable, he placed the picture on his chest, on top of his sub armor's breast plate- directly over his heart- and closed his eyes and tried to imagine that Kay was there. Her body was curled up against his own, her head laying on his chest in place of the picture, her long silken hair slipping across her cheek like a curtain as she slung one of her slender arms across his stomach and snuggled closer as his eyes drifted closed he could almost imagine his fingers buried in her thick hair, petting it as he drifted off to sleep.

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Kay never bothered to come out of her most recent hiding spot unless it was pitch dark outside. Ever since the city had become a ghost town, she never bothered to leave her hiding spot during the day. It didn't matter if she was hungry. It didn't matter if she was thirsty or sick. She refused to be captured by the strange, creepy people in armor. She refused to be just another person taken against their will and imprisoned somewhere. Or have who knows what done to her for no good reason...

And the best way to avoid being taken was to use the cover of night to her advantage.

Slipping into the empty house she'd just found not far from her most recent hiding spot, she decided that a shower, some clean clothes and food would be nice for a change. She'd keep the time she spent here down to no more than forty five minutes. That's all she needed to take care of things anyways.

Carefully closing the door, the first thing she searched for was candles. Because aside from flashlights which to some extent were unreliable- candles had saved her life more times than she dared to count these past few weeks. They kept her from making mistakes, too much noise, and even breaking her neck tripping over some random thing. Like animals, toys, exct...

After locating the candles and lighting a few, she went from room to room. Slowly checking things for any signs of life. After all the last thing she needed was to accidentally step on an decaying animal carcass and freak out again. Her screaming alone had cost her fresh clothing and food for close to four days straight.

Once she was sure the house was clear of any signs of life- she went through it again noting that there were five bedrooms. A master bedroom with a man and woman's stuff inside and several smaller rooms with children's things in them. It took several minutes of going through the things in one of the bedrooms, but eventually she found some clothing that would fit her. And then took a moment to search for towels before heading to the bathroom.

Knowing that if she didn't hurry, her time would run out.


End file.
